


Some Things You Can't Touch

by telm_393



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Relationship Study, Season/Series 02, Unrequited Eleanor/Tahani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: Tahani cares about Jason, and it quite frankly frustrates her.(An exploration of Tahani, Jason, and their...romance?)





	Some Things You Can't Touch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really not sure where this came from. Okay, actually, I am: I started a little fic about Jason and Tahani's relationship after they got together in season two, and then I finished it several months later, today, and now I am posting it.
> 
> There's also some implied past...abuse, probably. Something traumatizing definitely happened to Jason. Well, I mean, Jason's childhood happened to Jason.

Tahani and Jason sleep in the same bed because after having sex they’re usually too tired to move. They don’t have sex every night, though, so the truth is that neither of them are terribly fond of sleeping alone.

At least, Tahani isn’t.

Sometimes she has no idea if Jason really does want to sleep with her every night, no idea what Jason wants at all, especially on the nights that his sleep is restless, when his brow furrows and his breath turns shallow and he mutters incomprehensible words that she doesn’t try to decipher.

Tahani doesn’t wake him, and she doesn’t reach out, because when she does he pulls away from her like she’s trying to rub acid into his skin.

Usually, though, he’s close to her; even clings to her. She runs her fingers through his feathery hair as she drifts away.

It’s nice.

+

Tahani complains to Jason about having to sleep even in the afterlife, and how they’re never able to even sleep well.

(Of course, in the Bad Place, that makes sense.

It’s still terrible.)

Jason shrugs and tells her that he didn’t sleep that well anyway when he was alive.

Because it’s one of her braver moments, Tahani asks him if it was because of the nightmares.

Jason cocks his head and asks, “What nightmares?”

For the first time ever, Tahani thinks he’s playing dumb.

+

Sometimes—too often—Tahani isn’t able to sleep at all, especially on the nights when Jason’s back is turned and he’s very carefully not making any sort of physical contact.

Her mind wanders, usually to the same subjects, the ones she doesn’t want to want to think about.

She and Eleanor aren’t even close.

Or, rather, Tahani sometimes wishes they weren’t, tries to distance herself, but it’s hard to not become close when they are two of four human beings amongst demons.

Eleanor reaches out to her sometimes, says they should ‘hang out’, watch something together, go out for coffee, and Tahani can’t help but say yes, yes, yes, almost always.

 _You should really play harder to get,_ Tahani thinks sometimes, and then she banishes the thought, because she’s not playing anything. She’s with Jason.

Still.

It’s lovely, talking to Eleanor.

Eleanor may not be a good person (neither is Tahani, apparently), but her stories are interesting, even funny, as shocking as they can be. They’re not uncomfortable in the same way that Jason’s are, though. Not when Eleanor is _smart,_ not when she has a deeper understanding of if something was wrong. Tahani hates to think it, but she can’t have the same kind of conversations with Jason. Can’t feel the same kind of connection. She has a connection with him, of course, and a strong one, but…

There’s just not the same attraction.

The thought makes her freeze, because she shouldn’t be lusting after what she can’t have. Shouldn’t be lusting at all. It’s not that Eleanor’s a woman—well, it’s a little that Eleanor’s a woman, but mostly Tahani finds that she doesn’t have the energy to be ashamed of her sexuality here.

The bigger problem is that Eleanor’s so clearly in love with Chidi. She’s also clearly attracted to Tahani—who isn’t?—but that’s all it is, attraction. It hurts so much more than if all she felt for Tahani was friendship.

Tahani takes that hurt and shoves it down and settles for Jason, because he’s attractive and he finds her attractive and he loves her and that’s going to have to be enough.

+

Eleanor’s lips are warm and wet and Tahani deepens the kiss, tightens her arms around Eleanor, trails her fingers down her arms, closes her eyes—

She wakes up to jostling as Jason fights his way out of the embrace she absentmindedly enveloped him in when he cuddled close to her tonight just before drifting off.

She hurriedly scoots away from him, and he curls in on himself on the other end of their huge bed, half tangled in the covers, bare arms wrapped around his legs. His eyes are red-rimmed, and he’s staring into the distance at nothing, or at least it seems like nothing to Tahani.

Not so long ago, Tahani wouldn’t have said a word at Jason’s behavior, would have bottled up any concern and then poured it out like so much cheap liquor, but she loves him just enough to ask, reluctantly, “Jason? Are you alright?”

“This is bad,” Jason says, hushed. “I know it is, don’t tell me it’s not bad.”

Tahani feels very cold. “What? Are you…talking to me?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t say a single solitary word for the rest of the night, and there’s nothing Tahani can do.

+

In the morning, Jason makes her cereal that she pretends to like and chatters on about something to do with…Pokémon, maybe? as he wanders around the enormous kitchen island, inspecting the place like he hasn't seen it a million times before. In any case, she doesn’t have any interest in whatever it is he's on about, but Jason doesn’t notice, all blissful ignorance.

She hates him a little for it, or maybe more than a little. In fact, she hates him for it so much that she asks, suddenly, “What about last night?”

She stands up from her chair, feeling emboldened by her anger, like she wants to pull out the dark things in him like he’s been able to pull out the pain in her without knowing it. He’s even helped her calm that pain, some of it, not enough of it, helped her let her hair down, metaphorically, and yet there’s nothing she can do for him. As if he’s better than her at, what? Being perfectly alright?

Because she’s sure that he would be just _fine_ if she broke up with him, if she told him she was in love with Eleanor, not that she’s in love with Eleanor, that he’d just waltz right along until…

Until when? Until night-time? Until he couldn’t distract himself with whatever it is he distracts himself with?

“Huh?” he asks, cocking his head like a bird. He doesn’t understand.

“You were frightened. Doesn’t that bother you? Doesn’t it stay with you?”

“No, I’m okay now,” Jason says, wide-eyed and cheerful. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, come on,” Tahani snaps. “It _does_ stay with you. Whatever it is! It’s stayed with you!”

“I just said it didn’t,” Jason says, bewildered. “So it didn’t. I’m happy, everything’s awesome.”

The words are rote and she can’t believe he believes them. “It all stayed with you, Jason. You talk about these deeply awful things like—la di da, it’s all just fine, but it’s not! It hurts you! I can see it!”

Jason looks vaguely panicked now, and just a touch indignant. “No, it doesn’t! You don’t know!”

“I don’t _want_ to know,” Tahani hisses. “Because it’s _that bad._ It’s that painful to hear, Jason, everything about your terrible, terrible life is that bad, and yet you act like it doesn’t bother you when it does! You’re so blind!”

“I have 20/20 vision!” Jason yells, stomping his foot, and Tahani very suddenly feels completely spent and very horrified at herself, because Jason is confused and hurt and she did that.

She promised herself that she’d stop hurting him, and it was so easy not to, and she still failed.

Tahani takes a step back, puts a hand on her hip and lets the other cradle her forehead. “I…”

“Why are you being so mean to me?” Jason asks plaintively, and Tahani wants to cry.

“I don’t know, Jason. I’m sorry. You just…” She just couldn’t stand the idea of someone not, what, wallowing in their absurdly disturbing past?

At first she thought Jason was too stupid to be truly unhappy, that she and the others—Chidi with his tortured anxiety, Eleanor with her endless desperate anger—were on a higher plane of joylessness, but the reality is that he’s as miserable as the rest of them, and she’s got the burden of knowing it because he’s just too stupid to realize he is unhappy, that he feels bad, that things are bad.

There’s something broken in him like there is in all of them, he just doesn’t know it. He has no idea what he feels, so he’s decided it’s all happiness. He’s only ever known his skewed, insular little world, so he’s decided it’s awesome and normal. Even the better life he imagined when he was alive was…pathetic. Maybe Tahani just can’t imagine being happy with what he seemed to be happy with, but that’s not actually it, because she knows him now, and he wasn’t happy, and he would never have been happy because there was just too much pain that he couldn’t process, and he still can’t.

Tahani hates that she knows him that well, so well that she is capable of hurting for him, for a man she was supposed to settle for, a man she’s not even in love with. It turns out that that doesn’t matter.

She hates that she can understand how terrible it is that Jason’s alright.

She hates that she’s smart enough to know she’s unhappy, that she’s always been smart enough. She hates that even with all her understanding of Jason, she doesn’t even know if she’s right, doesn’t even know if she’s getting it at all.

Everything is uncertain here. Everything is painful.

Even the sweetest thing in her sad excuse for an existence is a disappointment, because he’s not what she thought he was at all, and yet she still loves him more than she loved anyone else when she was alive.

Being dead has taught her that true love, true friendship is mostly pain and more pain, and it’s taught her that she didn’t have either in life, and Jason has taught her that very intimately, but it’s not his fault. It’s not his fault.

“I’m so sorry, Jason,” Tahani says, almost begging. “Please forget what I said, please, I was just…hysterical. I didn’t sleep much last night, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Just…just go back to whatever it is you were talking about.”

Jason looks at her wide-eyed and pale, and for a moment Tahani thinks he’s going to get angry. For a moment she thinks he’s not going to go along with her.

Then he smiles and says, “Okay!” and goes right back to whatever it is he was talking about before.

Tahani still doesn’t care.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is serendipitouscontaminant. I am, by the way, taking prompts for my Bad Things Happen Bingo, so if you are also into sitcom angst...prompt me. (Ugly link: https://serendipitouscontaminant.tumblr.com/post/174682080060/ahhhh-i-got-my-card-for-the-bad-things-happen)


End file.
